Prayer of the Faithless Reviews

Hit a bug after first meeting the Manna with Aeyr where the screen goes black once it switches to Mia and never resolves itself. Should have been better tested before it launched.

[i]Truncated for character limits. Full review at [url=https://www.dragon-quill.net/prayer-of-the-faithless/]Dragon Quill.[/url] Comments are enabled there.[/i] The most obvious thing about this game is that it is incredibly, incredibly grimdark. The world is in the middle of a slow-motion apocalypse, but there is no Chosen One around to save it, so everyone is resigned to futilely pushing back the encroaching doom until humanity is finally snuffed out. Now, I say [i]grim[/i]dark instead of dark because, well, the existential horror of the setting doesn't seem to actually [i]weigh[/i] on anyone that much. The cadets training to be the last bastion of defense against humanity's inevitable destruction still make time for petty high school cliques and bullying, and despite their leader being borderline fascist the protagonist is able to get away with petty pranks and constant, flagrant disrespect for authority -- until suddenly he can't and he's going to get EXECUTED for backtalking the king, but actually don't worry his friend in high places pulls strings to bail him out because we can't actually have consequences for the protagonist, it's not like this is supposed to be a dark story or anything. ...Let's back up so I can explain the plot. The world is being consumed by a supernatural mist called the Fog that spawns monsters and slowly kills everything it touches. There used to be oracles who could see the future, but after the Fog appeared they all lost their powers -- except very recently, an oracle suddenly delivered a prophecy that a revenant would bring ruin to the world. One of the two protagonists, Aeyr Wilder, becomes that revenant after dying to a monster and being resurrected, whereupon everyone decides he's actually an insane demon wearing Aeyr's face and has to be killed, despite all evidence to the contrary. You can probably see where this is heading: it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because Aeyr decides that if everyone hates him he'll become the monster everyone thinks he is. Meanwhile, the second protagonist and Aeyr's only friend, Mia Alacruz, becomes leader of a band of refugees she must lead to safety after they are cut off from civilization by the Fog. The writing is characterized by some pretty extreme tonal whiplash. Once the plot gets moving, most of the main characters do treat the situation with the gravity it deserves, but Aeyr and his team never stop acting like quippy, juvenile, and unreasonably optimistic YA characters. It makes it really hard to take Aeyr's claims he's oh-so-oppressed seriously when he doesn't act any different from your average real-life teenage brat. The Big Shocking Reveals are similarly edgelordy, and almost universally revolve around everyone being Stupid Evil or just plain stupid. As an example: The fascist commander discovers that humans become immune to the Fog if implanted with magic artifacts, and moreover that willing subjects have a 100% success rate while unwilling subjects have a 99% failure rate. Instead of [i]telling people this[/i], in which case she should logically have a queue the entire length of the city, she keeps everything a secret and continues torturing unwilling subjects for no reason. Why? Why would anyone do this? This isn't even necessary evil, this is just plain stupid evil. The story is overall framed as a conflict between individualism (on Aeyr's side) and collectivism (on Mia's side), and though the developer claims there is no "true" or "correct" ending, I see a very clear bias towards Aeyr: Aeyr betrays Mia first, but Mia forgives him and this is brushed off by the narrative; when Mia betrays him later (for a much, much better reason), that's treated as an unforgivable offense. The story is also incredibly misanthropic: the masses are consistently depicted as selfish, overemotional idiots who never listen to reason and descend into panic and violence at the slightest excuse, and anyone who tries to be any kind of ruler is inevitably corrupted by power and forced to commit crimes against humanity to appease these monsters. (Also, hive minds are bad.) There are a few token attempts to claim Aeyr bears some of the blame for his ostracization by being a childish raging asshole to everyone constantly, but this never goes anywhere, while Aeyr's accusations that Mia has become a fascist (by, uh, not wanting civilization to collapse) are proven objectively correct by the narrative. There's also a disturbing degree of monarchism throughout the whole thing. Both of the two societies we see are ruled by bloodline monarchs and are shown to fall apart as soon as they die because no one can conceive of any other form of governance. One of the monarchs is shown to be evil and the other incompetent, so it's at least not depicting monarchs as objectively better, but did we really need this? I get that monarchies are a staple of fantasy settings, but if you want to provide social commentary on modern society you need to accurately reflect modern society. Vanessa is already the de facto leader of Asala at the start of the story so nothing would have to change by making her de jure, and making Vergio a democracy would at least lend some credence to the claim they're a slave to the masses instead of their emperor being the only monarch in all of history who places the peasants' desires over his own. Additionally, I feel I should note: The only dark-skinned characters are the magic mutant people with psychedelic hair, and the characters list their dark skin in the same breath as the impossible hair when talking about how they're Weird and Other. This is a bad trope and fantasy authors really, really ought to know that by now. Dark skin is a normal human trait and should be treated as such. The whole story ended up feeling very post-hoc to me. Its argument appears to be, "Taking it as a given that people are terrible, asking people to make sacrifices for the greater good is wrong." Except, uh, no, I do [i]not[/i] take that as a given, nor should I. People are not inherently unreasonable and do not inherently desire fascism, nor does every single person in a society fall to mob mentality when it strikes. There were German citizens who fought and died opposing the Nazis. Donald Trump did not get a majority of the vote -- nor did Hitler, I feel I should point out since everyone loves to trot out that he was democratically elected. Humanity is not a monolith; "society" or "the collective" is always made up of individuals who make their own individual decisions, and it is not fair to lump everyone in with an evil vocal minority. It's a shame, because I feel there is a lot of value here. On paper, I think the story is a very good one -- the struggle between collectivism vs. individualism is an important question, as are questions of what to do in the face of existential risks and how to balance ideals and reality. The story is very genuine, and I found parts of the Judged and Tired endings genuinely touching. But it just crumbled in execution, largely I suspect due to the creator's overwhelming bias towards individualism; the story was supposed to weigh it against collectivism, but it could never do that fairly. Maybe that is an intractable problem with the way we tell stories, which present an inherent divide between The Main Characters Who Matter and the The Background Characters Who Don't? It's hard to care about the collective when they are a (literally, in this case) faceless mass that speaks in one (whiny) voice.

Really don't want to be that guy who'd be dunking on an indie game. Making a game from start to finish is a huge accomplishment on its own - and I mean an actual game, with its own story, thought and effort put into its gameplay and not a shameless asset flip. Nonetheless, since this game is not free, I feel like I need to leave a warning for others who'd be tempted by the promise of a well-told gripping story - it won't be found here. Not many games have burned through my good will so quickly in recent memory. In 40 minutes of playing I was presented with exposition dumps so blatant I didn't think that's something people still don't know better not to do. Then the main character, who lives in a fantasy setting with paladins and castles talking like a stereotype of skate park punk - where the hell would he know what a fanclub is? This isn't isekai, it's supposed to be a setting where the behavior and mannerisms of the characters stem from the history and culture of the world. It doesn't feel like the way people speak in this game is regarded less to make them more relatable in hopes that suspension of disbelief will do its job and let the player focus on the story it tries to tell. Instead, it's given no regard at all, the suspension of disbelief is taken for granted until it's savagely torn through by the main characters and stampeded over with all the nameless NPCs that stand there and tell you random facts and gossip about the game's world. I realize that it's a common NPC problem in games in general, but this game doesn't even show any awareness of it. Everything else - the ugly visuals and sound, lack of controller support and whatnot I can overlook, even though there are plenty of examples of games made on similar scale with those things done very decently, but the writing, in my opinion, has no excuse to be this bad in a game that is sold for money and with its story being the main selling point. The game's ideas are very appealing and I hope Red_Nova will make them justice someday.

An exceptional game set in a seemingly doomed world, providing a very likable cast of characters with conflicting flaws and issues. The overall plot is exceptional as you try just to survive while uncovering more about this world and pushing the characters forward. It's rare to find an RPG cast of characters I like this much, rarer still for their own motivations to shake up the plot this much. I didn't expect to find so much heart in a dark fantasy, it was a very welcome surprise. Combat is very survival based, kill or be killed. Don't expect your normal escalation of power, as new gear and powers are more about fine-tuning your play style rather than getting big upgrades. You also need to break foe's guard gauge to help you damage them, which can be a learning process. Ultimately I think the battle system really supports the dark tone and story, and it makes battles very tense, but also incentivises you not to take combat lightly. I think it makes combat slightly less enjoyable and more nail-biting than some other RPGs, but given that it supports the world the story takes place in, I can't really complain much. The game also has multiple endings and seems to alter the plot based on choices or character actions. I'm not sure exactly how this works but it's a very neat touch. I'll have to go back and replay more of the game to see if I can get a handle on how everything changes. Overall a high recommendation. I wish more RPGs put this much effort into characters, story and world.

This is a great game and I'm glad stuff like this still gets made nowadays. It has some nerve-racking, unique gameplay that never feels unfair or boring. This game does the thing of having two separate parties doing their own stuff for most of the game until eventually converging and it is executed very well. The story is very thrilling, with lots of intrigue and good worldbuilding, and the cast of characters is very likable. Anyone who likes dark JRPGs, especially indie ones, should play this game.

i like this game a lot it has one of the more unique combat systems a rpg maker game has to offer if there was an auto battle function in this game it would never be worth it combat requires your attention and will cost you badly if you dont little when you do but like i said there still is a cost stay on your toes the combat and player/enemy design is the big check marks for me the plot is good music is there world is doomed so thats cool and the end determination is clever but not a 'lemme reload and pick ending B real quick' type of thing you almost have to restart entirely sorry

A hard, deep, rewarding game. Prayer of the Faithless is very worth checking out if you enjoy a good challenge and intriguing world/characters... if you are brave enough. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through and I legit felt a sense of rush once the combat clicked and I started tearing down waves of enemies. The game is very hard and proud of it. Don't worry, it's not cheap. Once you learn the mechanics, you can find various ways to annihilate your foes. Or fall to them. The combat is very deep, with mechanics built around the character's personalities. Much kudos to Red Nova.

This game is incredible. If you're looking for a game with great story, gameplay and a story that really drags you in, this is it. I enjoyed every moment of it. A+++

As someone with no particular preference for pixel graphics I found this game very good. Incredible storyline with solid characters and worldbuilding. The setting is bleak but the humanity of the characters really still show.

At first I bought it without knowing what I would get. An story driven game made in rpg maker is always a risk because what makes them good is the story. In this case I have to say it was beyond all my expectations. I have only got one ending but I'm planning in getting every single one of them. The characters are all charismatic, there wasn't one who I didn't like and the worldbuilding is otherworldly. It was worth it.